


Falling

by AnnaRaven



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Drabble, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-11
Updated: 2017-01-11
Packaged: 2018-09-16 20:36:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9288623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnaRaven/pseuds/AnnaRaven
Summary: Short but sweet - sometimes, it's okay to fall.





	

When Shepard was eleven he talked himself onto a trip for underprivileged kids, organised and paid for by a local church group. Really he was too young, it was meant to be for the knife-sharp teenagers that hung around the street corners. But he’d always been older than he really was, outside and in, and anyway he figured if _he_ didn’t qualify as ‘underprivileged’ then nobody did.

They went to a summer camp, some unpronounceable place up in the mountains where the sky was way too big and he felt suddenly far too small. One blinding-bright morning he found himself standing on the edge of the dock, staring down into the lake below him; swirling water, eddies and waves, disorienting and hypnotic. He could see the sand and the pebbles on the lake bed and it was like looking into his own life, layers over layers, what you saw on the surface moving in the opposite direction to what lay beneath. He couldn’t catch his breath, filled to buzzing with anticipation and adrenaline, longing to jump and at the same time dreading it. Then a shriek from another camper made him startle; his foot slipped and he fell.

He’d been building himself up to jump just a minute before, but the suddenness of falling was shocking, overwhelming. The sensation of movement, the iciness of the water, the rushing in his ears, the loss of control, sent panic spiralling through him. He felt like he’d never touch the bottom, never find his feet again; that he’d somehow always be falling with no idea how to land.

He’d forgotten that feeling, that pit-of-the-stomach drop and lurch, until the day it hit him again full force.

He was standing in the mess hall of his first command, Spectre status sitting heavy on his shoulders, the weight of the galaxy’s problems clouding his mind. Then he looked up into clear brown eyes and saw a warmth, a spark, that had never been there before.

The rush of blood was familiar - the constriction in his chest, the tightening in his stomach - and the sensation of falling was surprising but somehow expected, too. But this time the fear had a sweet edge; this time, the loss of control was welcome.

And he knew that he would be okay, whether he landed with a thud or kept falling forever.


End file.
